Prisoners of Asgard
by Tuladir
Summary: Loki is sentenced to life in prison, but this isn't his only concern: the Chitauri have control of his mind and won't relent until the Tesseract is theirs. Asgardian enchantress Astrid is also a prisoner of sorts, and she is charged with the responsibility of protecting Loki's mind.
1. Chapter 1

The warmth of the evening sun glides across my face as my feet carry me into the Hall of Kings—a place where the solemn statues of Odin's predecessors salute the Bifrost as it crosses an expanse of glittering ocean to Heimdall's Keep.

I stand in the midst of a legion of warriors, their armor bristling, their weapons pounding the Bifrost with rhythmic thunder. The only weapon I carry is a dagger, hidden in the folds of my gown. But I won't need it. My real weapon, my most powerful one, is my mind.

I'm an enchantress, the only living one in the Nine Realms. Asgardians revere me. To them, I'm as good as a princess. But they don't realize I'm really just a prisoner.

It wasn't my choice, what I am. I'm a seventh generation. The day it was revealed that my great-great-great-great-great grandmother could wield the mind like a warrior her sword or a mage his staff, we were locked within the Keep. I am never alone, never left without some form of "protection." I actually think Odin is suspicious of us, secretly fears us, worries we'll slip out of his grasp on a day when he'll really need us. It's my job, according to him, to be in communication with the energies surrounding our realm, and to warn of trouble.

That is why I'm here today, walking beside Heimdall, who's mentored each of my ancestors, and guarded on all sides by Asgard's best and brightest. But I guess there's no such thing as over-preparing when the most wanted criminal in the Nine Realms is involved.

Loki… I find my eyes wandering to places that remind me of him, like the marble pillar he liked to hide behind as a mischievous young boy, tossing pebbles into the water to frighten guards into drawing their weapons. To my right is the statue of the ancient sorcerer king who holds The Book of All Knowledge in his massive, stone hands. Sometimes Loki'd go missing, but I'd never once give away his whereabouts in those giant hands, his eyes poring over some dusty tome of magic and mystery. They opened doors in his mind that never closed again… Of course, his magician mother Frigga encouraged his interests, but Loki took the art farther than she ever dared.

Two towering walls curve inwards towards us, joined by a pair of golden doors that swing slowly open. As we march past a dozen Gate Guardians, I remember the time when Loki disguised himself as one of them and winked at me. I blushed crimson and couldn't look at him again for days afterward.

Now, the doors shudder as the Guardians pull them apart, and the setting sun hits me in the face. I close my eyes, enjoying the brief moment of emptiness in my mind—a rare thing. This utter brilliancy drives away thought and replaces it with colors—beautiful, riveting, shifting colors.

When I open my eyes again, I see an entourage of hovercraft on either side of the Bifrost. The warriors inside them are silent with weapons poised at-the-ready. Ships sway every hundred yards from each other, monitoring the Bridge on the swells of the sea.

There's a tightness in my throat, an unwillingness to walk another step. But I have to. I have to let those pages of our lives dissolve into dust, Loki's and mine. I _have_ to let them go and start thinking about Loki as a prisoner—not a prince.

I concentrate on the weight of the dagger in my robe, thumping against my thigh with each step. It is a reassuring presence to guide me through this unpredictable new assignment of mine: guard Loki's mind the rest of his days, as he rots in Heljek Prison.

Odin knew how close I was with his adopted son…how we spent every waking moment together as young warriors… So why would he want me in such close proximity to him? Perhaps he assumes that things are too changed now to ever go back to how they were before. Perhaps Odin thinks Loki will never trust me, or anyone, ever again. Perhaps he's right. But, gods, I hope he's wrong—

My vision darkens and a light appears, a light no one else can see but me. I have the choice of whether or not to allow it to swallow me, and sensing a safe presence within it, I release that part of me that I can't explain. Part of me that isn't really me but yet still is me, that visits these energies I sense and returns to me whole again, having learned something invaluable.

The light expands as I soar towards it. Stars spin. My breath catches. Then I am no longer on the Bifrost but standing on a dusty plateau in deep space. Nebulae pulse overhead, and there is a strange hissing sound coming from around the other side of a pockmarked boulder. I sense this vision is about Loki, and suspending my disbelief, which Heimdall says is the only way I can manage to experience moments like this, I take a few steps forward and peer around the boulder.

A Chitauri lord stands inches from Loki, his open mouth revealing rows of jagged teeth draped in red slime. "You failure! FAILURE!" He hurls his fist at Loki's face and slashes him across the jaw. Loki stumbles. "I will hunt you down to the edge of the universe, if I must. There is nowhere you can escape me—"

"I tried—I tried everything I could think of!" Loki shouts.

"Well, it wasn't enough!" The Chitauri brings his staff down across Loki's face hard, and everything goes black.

My vision swirls. Stars whoosh past again. I can't breathe. That's normal though. I'm used to it.

Then I'm back in myself again, and Heimdall is holding my elbow, guiding my body along until I arrive back into it safely.

"Heimdall, I just saw him," I croak. "Loki. He's in trouble—"

I can't finish before a sucking sound rips through the air. The force of it pulls me forward and pushes me back again. I have to fight to keep my balance. Thank the gods for Heimdall's strong arms. Then the brilliancy of the sun vanishes and in its place is a black and blue and white wormhole, pulsing with power and deadly energy.

Hello, Tesseract. I've heard so much about you. Not all good things, no.

As quickly as it comes, it goes. The sunset reappears, the Bifrost's rainbowed speckles of light. And then two figures are advancing towards us, their capes tossing in the wind. One is taller than the other, narrower. My heart drops into my stomach.

Loki.

I breathe in and out shakily. All those sleepless nights, praying he'd make it back alive… Now here he is.

In Thor's right hand glows the Tesseract—the most powerful energy source in the known universe. I lift my chin in determination.

Guard Loki's mind so Thor and the warriors can be sure the Tesseract never falls into the wrong hands.

This is my order, one I will have to follow for the rest of my days. That makes Loki and I prisoners both. It seems we have more in common now than ever before.

I hear the tapping of one thousand spears on the Bifrost, one thousand swords rattling in their sheaths, as the Guardian Warriors around me stand at attention. The next moment, the two princes of Asgard are surrounded by warriors, alert and wary of Loki-magic. I stand at the head of the Prison Guardians, between Heimdall and Heljek Prison's Head Warden Staghir. We bow together, our knees bending, our fists pressing against our chests.

Thor nods to Heimdall and they shake hands, embrace like brothers. I purposefully stare at the Bifrost until I hear, "Lady Astrid, so good to see you." When I look up, Thor's smile is warm and genuine, though there are dark circles beneath his eyes and a limp in his walk.

I smile in return. "As am I. We are all so thankful for your safe return, my lord."

Thor nods, signals for me to straighten, and asks, "How is my father?"

"He is well," I answer, "only worried about his sons' safe arrival." I realize Loki could think I meant only Thor's safe arrival, so I add, "Both of you."

I stare at Loki's boots to keep from looking up at his face, because I know his eyes will disarm me, wipe out what little resolve I have left to treat him as a prisoner for the rest of his life. I try to imagine his eyes instead, probably shifting from the Bifrost to the sky to the sea, assessing, finding holes in our security. Maybe settling onto my face. And that's when I hear him.

_Astrid_, he says.

In my mind.

I make some sort of choking sound. My knees buckle. _How did he do that? _Thor's brows furrow with concern, but thankfully, Staghir cuts him off before he can question me. "Our warriors will escort you and the Tesseract to the Safe Zone following Loki's confinement, my lord."

"Very well," Thor says. "Lead on." He gives Loki a shove forward, and against my better wishes, I see his face for the first time in nearly two years.

His hands are cuffed in front of him by thick iron bands and a silencer clutches his lower face. His cheeks are sunken and hollow. The skin beneath his eyes is a bronzy grey color, and when he looks at me, his sea-foam green eyes are stormy with rage.

He looks completely and utterly insane.

I tear my eyes away from his before anyone notices that I've stared too long.

My head aches, like someone poked it with a frozen spear-tip and twisted it around a little. No one knows how to do that, how to speak into my mind. I'm an enchantress. I'm trained in the art of telepathic communication. Not even Heimdall can speak into my mind without my permission. So how did Loki do that, and what else is he capable of?

Staghir signals to the aircraft and ships around us, and they follow our progress down the Bifrost, towards the Keep. The legion to either side of us closes shoulders, and I wonder what Loki is thinking now. Does he find this entourage excessive? Or is he too worn out to care? Is he scheming still? Or is he too sick and weak?

It seems as if it were only days ago that we trained together, rode into battle beside one another, shared stories at mealtimes. Funny how different the two brothers were—are. Thor was always popular, a favorite among our comrades in the Guard because of his charisma and reckless bravery. But Loki's quiet intrigue won many over to his side, including myself. He was introspective, unlike his brother, and deliberate. Everything he said, everything he did, had a reason, a purpose. We all listened. We held on to every word.

Most of us in the Guard owe our lives to him, because at some point in our years of defending the Nine Realms, his silver tongue had been the only barrier between life and death. We all knew Loki could rule like a true king just as easily as Thor, if not better. But because Thor was expected to take the throne, everyone wanted to be on his side when Coronation Day came around. Everyone wanted a place in his kingdom when it came time for him to rule. No one put in the time and effort to get to know Loki like I did.

I met him on our first day of Guardian Training. I wanted to be the first one there, but when I arrived in the courtyard, breathless and nervous out of my mind, I saw a boy standing in the middle of the arena, his back to me. I knew who he was, because I saw his head of dark hair, his lean, straight body. My whole life, I'd seen him standing at Odin's left side for ceremonies. Curious, I slipped into the shadows and watched.

His fingers traced the edge of the blade in his hand as he held it up to the light. Then he danced with it. At least, neither before nor since had I never seen anyone but Loki move so gracefully with a weapon. I held my breath as he twisted the blade over his head and spun it around his torso twice before stabbing the sandy arena floor. Sand erupted over his black boots as he stared at the buried tip of his weapon. Then he looked right at me. Right into my eyes like he knew they were there the whole time. And I froze. Couldn't move.

Now, I shut my eyes so tight, they hurt. Behind me, I hear Thor's heavy steps mixed with Loki's light and careful ones.

Next, he screams.


	2. Chapter 2

I only know he is screaming because of the veins standing up out of his neck and forehead—the silencer dulls most of the sound. He screamed the same way years ago, when we fought firebeasts off the Isles of Ismira. One of the brute's flaming spikes pierced Loki's lower back and poked out the other side, sizzling and frying the organs in its path. He writhed with pain as I destroyed the lavabeast. We barely got him to the medwing back at Asgard in time.

The difference this time is that he is also screaming in my mind.

He falls. I fall. We both scream our brains out. The pain is unimaginable, like the frozen spear-tip in my mind has suddenly become molten lava and it courses through every cavity in my head, my body. Every vein, every cell is afire.

I can hear nothing but our screams, yet I see Heimdall pointing behind us and then the Tesseract is glowing bright blue again. The wormhole reopens, and a long creature of flesh and metal slithers into Asgard.

_New York_, I think, for one flash of a comprehendible second. These creatures are the same ones Loki used in his attempt to ravish that populous Earth-city. They've followed their debtor all the way to Asgard for their reward: the Tesseract. But how did they get here without it? Thor has it in his right hand… Have they duplicated it somehow? Impossible. My mind spins…

Pain.

But protect Loki.

There's nothing but pain.

Protect Loki.

Pain and the lava coursing through my veins.

Loki.

Another iron fish creature enters through the wormhole, mounted by Chitauri warriors with jagged blades and snapping teeth dripping red saliva. A flurry of arrows passes over my head, zinging through the air before hitting their destinations with methodic accuracy. Warriors send a volley of Agardian arrows back at the hideous creatures and croaking, distorted screams tear through the air as several hideous creatures fall into the sea.

Then Thor is yelling my name. "Astrid! Astrid!"

My screams fade. The lava cools, dissipates. Thor has me in his arms, I realize. "Loki," I whisper, my voice cracking. I push Thor away and crawl to his side. He is still writhing violently, so I pin his shoulders down, making the Bifrost glow bright shades of blue and green and gold. I hold him there until he stops bucking.

_Loki, I need you to listen to me_, I speak into his mind. Now that the pain is gone, I can concentrate on using my powers, though my whole body aches.

Loki's eyes roll so fast, my own start hurting again. "Thor!" I scream. "Carry him! We have to get him away from here—now!"

Without a word, Thor tosses Loki over his shoulder and, taking my hand, makes for the gates to the Keep.

Guardians chop, fire, and swipe left and right, throwing Chitauri bodies off the Bifrost and into the sea. An overly large Chitauri monster launches a javelin at my head. I have only enough time to duck as it zooms past. But my cheek and ear burn, and I know I'm hit. Hardly wincing, I continue running with Thor toward the palace. Thirty soldiers surround us, close shoulders so I can't see between them. We leave Heimdall and Staghir to direct the fight.

We've almost dragged Loki to the end of the Bridge, and the golden doors are just opening, when a platoon of Chitauri land behind us and fight their way through our warriors. Thor shoves Loki unceremoniously inside and screams for me to follow him. But I stop and face my adversaries instead.

I only have to concentrate a second before releasing a wave energy that kicks the air, sending the Chitauri flailing into the sea. I stab one through the eye with my dagger, and Thor pulls me into the Keep.


	3. Chapter 3

Inside, I kneel over Loki, who is now twitching uncontrollably.

"Do the Chitauri control his mind?" Thor asks me.

I look up at him, searching his eyes and finding a mixture of sadness and anger in them. "I don't know," I whisper. I'm not even sure of what to make of my vision on the Bifrost.

"He can't control it?"

"I'll teach him to."

Thor's eyes widen, and he says nothing.

I place my hand on Loki's chest and feel the rise and fall of his lungs. "Loki," I say aloud for Thor's benefit. _You're safe here_, I tell him, telepathically.

Instantly, his eyes flutter open and lock onto mine.

_Are you hurt?_ I ask him, wondering if he'll answer, if he'll speak into my mind like he did earlier, on the Bifrost.

I'm hardly surprised when he does._ Oh, you know. Just some routine alien mind-possession and subsequent writhing in excruciating pain. What's new? _His tone is familiarly lilting and sarcastic. Despite everything, it makes me smile.

Thor clears his throat. "Let's bring him to Father." He pulls Loki to his feet and tells me to lead the way.

I simply nod in agreement. With the Chitauri outside, Loki possibly in communication with them, and my telepathic powers… I can see how Thor feels agitated and wants to get on with things. And he's right: our best bet is to bring Loki to Odin. The sooner his trial is over, the sooner he can eat and rest.

We cross through the Hall of Kings and enter the colonnaded Throne Room, where sunlight washes everything in deep orange. I watch from behind as guards attach chains to Loki's cuffs, remove his silencer, and pull him down the Hall. Thor and I hang back, flanked by guards to protect the Tesseract.

I can't hear what is being said, only the tone of the ensuing conversation. Odin is calm and collected. Loki responds in his usual lilting manner. Though I can't hear what he says, I'm sure it's obnoxious. Probably unapologetic. Queen Frigga is told to leave and does so hesitantly. When she's gone, Odin's voice becomes significantly sterner and rises. Loki's falls, stops altogether. His shoulders drop, and I know Odin has pronounced his sentence upon him. The guards clip their heels together. Loki's silencer is returned to his face, and he is marched to the left and down a long hall that leads to Heljek prison.

When Thor alerts Odin about the Chitauri episode outside the Keep, the king only nods knowingly and says, "Heimdall has notified me. I will ride out…in a moment." His old, sagging eyes stare at the Tesseract with a mixture of sadness and disgust. Then he looks at me as if seeing me standing here for the first time. "Take care of him, Astrid, won't you?"

"Of course, your majesty," I say, bowing lowly.

Odin nods. "And Thor," he adds, "take care." He gestures to the Tesseract.

Thor bows. "I will, Father."

We swiftly rejoin Loki's entourage in the Tunnels of Despair, where it grows steadily colder the further in we walk. Attendants pass us wool-lined fur cloaks. I take an extra long one and reach up high to slip it over Loki's tall shoulders. I can feel Thor's curious stare on my back.

The crystal gates of Heljek Prison's north wing gleam an icy blue. Inside, ice covers everything. Our breaths come in thick white puffs, and the ends of our capes scrape across the floor, dragging bits of broken icicles and frost at their hems. Winter in Heljek is miserable.

The prison is in complete lockdown with warriors marching in groups of three. The ships that have followed us in from the sea dock in the shallow water on either side of the marble walkway, and the aircraft hover, waiting, watching for any sign of trouble. In the Vaults, where prisoners meander aimlessly behind impregnable glass walls, a battalion of warriors stand every two feet apart, spears raised at-the-ready.

I clench my teeth and prepare for the worst that could possibly happen, like the Chitauri somehow catch up with us or Loki take off with the Tesseract… But, thank the gods, nothing does.

At a particularly white and barren cell, twenty warriors surround us, their weapons clattering as they form a U-shape with Thor and me standing in the middle. I can see the other prisoners straining for a view of the newcomer. I place my left hand against the sensor located inside the glass wall. All five of my finger prints and then my palm are scanned for authenticity in a flash of blue light. I gesture for Thor to continue inside with Loki. These awkward family dynamics torture me. I don't have family, other than my comrades in the Guard, and I don't know what it is like to be a part of a real one. But I am certain it is not a pleasant experience, escorting your own brother into prison.

Thor's jaw tenses as he pushes Loki into the cell. Loki staggers, struggling for balance with both hands shackled in front of him. Thor doesn't enter the hold but stands in the doorway, staring at him. Then without saying anything, he backs away, leaving Loki alone with dust settling on the toes of his boots. The glass wall transforms into one solid piece again as the last thread of Thor's cape leaves the sensory zone.

Thor presses the keys to Loki's silencer and shackles into my palm and takes both of my hands in his. I glance behind me to see Loki watching us through the glass. "Take care, Lady Astrid," Thor says. "He is no longer the prince you remember so fondly."

I stare at him, reading his intentions. They're good. He only wants to protect me. I'm practically his little sister, after all. So I bow my head slightly and say, "Your escort is ready, my lord." The sooner the Tesseract is in the Safe Zone—an impenetrable chamber of doom to any intruder other than Odin—the better.

Thor searches both of my eyes and says, "Watch him like a hawk." As he excuses himself, I smell his musty clothes, hear his steps fall across the frosted marble floors. He has come such a long way from the reckless youth I sparred with in training.

When I look back into the hold, I see Loki's eyes have roved to the Tesseract, dangling at Thor's side. So it's like a disease then. A sickness. The Tesseract's power has twisted his mind, drained his reasoning, and caused him to commit crimes he otherwise never would commit.

I'm glad to see the Tesseract disappear down the hall, and I swear to myself that I will never let Loki near it again, ever. I will die first.

A servant hands me a plateful of meat and fruit. As I take it, the guards step aside for me to enter Loki's cell.

My feet tap the smooth white floor as I step inside and the glass doors close us in together. We stand ten feet apart, sizing up one another like we're back in Guardian training. We sparred twice. The first time ended after half an hour of sword-slashing and fist-swinging. The protective forceshield that keeps warriors from actually harming each other could only do so much. By the end of the match, we were sweaty and bruised, and I was on top of him, my dagger at his throat. The second time, Loki beat me in a record five seconds. I don't know how he did it. Something happened where I couldn't move. My arms just froze at my sides and Loki merely pointed the blade at my heart while the instructor called match.

Now, the only parts of him I can see—his face, neck, and hands—are covered with dirt and ash and tinged a sickly grey, only partially due to the reflection of the lighting off the silencer that's locked tightly around his jaw. A scrape runs across his forehead and another on his cheekbone. A fairly painful-looking cut runs from somewhere beneath the collar of his cloak to just under his ear, and a bruise smarts beneath his left eye, large enough to have been put there by a Thor-sized fist.

He takes me in too, with my recent injuries. He watches the warm, sticky blood dribbling down my cheek and neck from that Chitauri's javelin.

I put the plate on the table against the wall and take the keys from my cloak. I hold them up so he can see them and ask, "May I?"

He ducks his head in polite submission—regal, even while chained.

I step towards him. We are inches apart now, and my hands begin to shake as they never do when I ride into battle with my Guardian comrades. With ease I slice the heads off of ice trolls and monsters of the deep, but it is a full out battle for me to simply touch Loki's face…

He watches me as I bring my hand to his jawline and slip the key into the slot near his ear. I practically have to stand on tiptoe to reach it, he is so tall. A click sounds from somewhere within the metal, and the silencer relinquishes its grip. I lift it from his face and fold it into my cloak.

Thin red lines are embedded in his cheeks and under his jaw where the silencer clamped too tightly. I stare at them while he cracks his neck, rotating it in a slow, deliberate circle. The red lines cut his face in half—the upper his mind, the lower his mouth. I think of his power of deceit, his ability to think one thing and deliberately say another to achieve his ends, and so convincingly that everyone follows after him, completely won over.

I take a step back and say, "You should eat something. And try to sleep a little." The bed behind him is already fitted with the fine silk sheets and thick fur blankets, by Frigga's orders.

He doesn't respond, so I bow my head and turn to leave.

His voice stops me at the door. "Did you bow to me just then?" he asks, incredulous.

I don't like the sound of his voice—deeper, raspier than I remember it. Menacing. I turn to face him as the doors slide open to me. He flashes me a rueful smile. When I don't return it, he bows exaggeratedly. My guards take a nervous step forward, but Loki ignores them. "Run along then," he taunts me.

I stare at him so long I can feel my guards' anxiety building like a wall behind me. But I feel like I've just been punched in the stomach. This is not the Loki I remember. This is a different person—an angry, bitter person. I don't really know what else I expected, but it's still hard to see him like this, not at all how I remember him. And it's in this moment that I decide not to block out memories of the old Loki. I will cherish them, write them down, remember them in my every waking minute. Because it's all I have left of my best friend.

"I'm fine," I say to my guards when I am outside. Instantly, Loki's hold is enveloped by heavily armed warriors bearing every weapon imaginable. No Chitauri intruder could ever make it through.

As I go, I feel Loki's eyes boring through the back of my skull. But I don't look back.

Not once.


	4. Chapter 4

I stumble back up the hall, dropping my coat on the ground without retrieving it, and make my way to Frigga. I have to see her. She is the only person who will understand. Outside, I see Heimdall directing wounded soldiers to the medwing. The battle is over then, the Chitauri forces vanquished. For now. Thank the gods. I'm not in the mood for another war.

I'm a lot like Loki in this sense. I tire of battle quickly, though I'm certainly an enemy to contend with. After I saw his skill with the blade, alone in the arena before our first day of training even began, I kept an eye on him. When we lined up for initial combat evaluation, Loki danced with his sword again before the instructors. I saw their faces light up, obviously impressed and a little surprised that the quiet, studious prince could handle a blade so adeptly. But when Thor swung his hammer and shook the ground, everyone cheered. From that day forward, our instructors paired the brothers in each day's final round of sparring. Loki held his own through speed and swift execution, but in the end, Thor's brute force won more often than not. After a particularly humiliating match nearly a year into training, Loki slipped into the shadows, and I followed him.

He went straight to the North Courtyard that overlooked the sea of Enjhor, vast and frozen. Half a mile below us, buried deep within the frozen earth, was Heljek Prison, where we two stand together now. I remember how snow clung to the palace walls, the archways and buttresses.

Loki walked beneath a trellis that overlooked the sea. I could hear it breaking against the glaciers below, hissing along the snowy shore. He sunk to the ground in exhaustion, and as he slid down, thin white ice came from his fingertips, cracked across the stone like shards of glass.

That was when I watched Loki turn things to ice. He breathed snow into his palm and blew it up into the air. The snowflakes froze in place, and with a wave of his hand, they turned into sparkling water droplets that made little holes in the snow where they fell. He molded a handful of the snow with his palms, held it out in front of him, and let go. The glob of snow stayed there, suspended in the air until it started spinning so fast that it became a perfect circle. Loki held open his palm and the ball of snow glided into it, then, drawing his arm back a little and releasing, the ball of snow catapulted into the sea at an unnatural speed.

He turned to me and smiled. I didn't think he knew I was there. I didn't know what to say. I remember how I almost ran away, I was so embarrassed. But he gestured for me to sit by him, and I did. I sat beside him in the snow. He held his fist out to me, and I touched his knuckles—so warm, shivers raced up my back, across my scalp. I hadn't expected them to be warm. When he turned his fist over and opened it, a white dove sat in his palm, preening its wings. I gasped as he threw it up into the air.

"Who knows you can do this?" I breathed.

"Just you," he whispered, watching his dove fly over the sea.

"So you've been letting Thor win," I deducted aloud, "because you could beat him like this—with whatever this is."

He stared at me for a moment. The corner of his lips twitched, then he looked away, across the sea.

We sat there together, watching the ice in the sea break in some places and build in others. When our arms, legs, and hoods were covered with an inch of snow, we helped each other to our feet, stiff and sore from training and cold, and went inside. I never said a word to anyone about what I saw. But that's when I learned that Loki possessed more power than what people gave him credit for…

I push apart a pair of thick oaken doors and find Frigga sitting at a table set for two. She's looking stately in a deep violet gown that drapes to the floor around her chair. "Sit, please," she tells me.

I smile and take the seat across the table from her. Servants bring us wine and cheese and fruit and meat—anything we want. But neither of us eats a bit of it. Past the columns that encompass our dining area are the stars, the sparkling sea.

"How is he, Astrid?" Frigga asks.

Loki. How is he? Awful. Beat up, starved-looking, and probably crazy. Nothing like he was before. "He's in one piece, but he is in desperate need of a sound night's sleep," I answer her. "And a good, long bath."

Frigga smiles that gentle, sweet smile she is famous for as queen of Asgard, Protectress of the Nine Realms. Then she speaks so softly, I can barely hear her: "I miss him, my youngest."

I look at my plate full of deliciously hot, tasty food and feel sick. I have no words to comfort Frigga. What can one say to a mother whose son has been sentenced to prison for the remainder of his days? Instead, I relay peace and restfulness to her with my mind. Sure enough, she smiles at me. She is one of few people who can sense my magic happening.

"I'm thankful you are able to watch over him, Astrid," Frigga says, taking my hand across the table. "You're like a daughter to me. Knowing you are there to care for him, to be sure he is safe—that is more than I could ever hope for."

I smile in return. "It's the least I can do," I whisper.

Frigg's eyes drift past me and onto the glimmering waves again. "Tell Loki, when you see him, that his mother loves him," she whispers.

Tonight, I dream of the way Loki looked at me when I left him in the interior hold earlier today, and I wake up in a cold sweat. My body still aches from the episode on the Bifrost, but when I finally do manage to fall back to sleep again, I dream of our screams, his and mine, the way it felt to have his voice inside my head, ridden with pain, urgent…

This second time I wipe the sweat off my face with the sheets and throw the heavy blanket off so hard it flips over and lands on the floor down-side facing up. Gasping for breath, I slip into my robe and walk out onto the balcony overlooking the city. Lights glimmer below me, glint off the metal buildings, domes, and bridges. And above the sleeping city, the sky is alive. Stars blink within twisting rivers of galaxies. Nebulae pulse overhead, rainbowed and vast.

I lean my elbows against the cool railing and listen to the night sounds: footsteps on walkways, opening and closing doors, a lyre strumming softly. Asgard never sleeps. But I'll be happy if I ever do again after seeing those eyes of his…so altered. I will just have to keep telling myself that the real Loki—the Loki I remember—is hidden inside, somewhere deep. Somewhere I have to strain with all my might to reach.

I grasp at bits and pieces of the former Loki until a memory appears in my mind, finally crystalline and tangible. The night of the Guardian Ball—a celebration of our having passed the required ten years of intensive Guardian training. That night, we were officially dubbed Guardians of Asgard by Odin himself.

It was just moments before the start of the ceremony. Loki stood alone at the foot of the grand staircase, and when he turned and saw me walking down it, he smiled. I wore an emerald-green gown, very unlike my usual black or grey garb and a few shades darker than his eyes.

"You look beautiful," he said to me.

"Thank you," I said, curtly. I never received a compliment on my appearance from a man before. The only compliments I received were in training, when my instructors saw my mind skills and aptitude with daggers. "You don't look terribly awful yourself," I told him, studying my sandaled feet. I felt a blush creeping through the veins in my cheeks, my nose.

Loki laughed, his smile white and gleaming. "Careful, Astrid, that was almost a compliment," he said.

Across the hall, Thor and his friends clasped hands and patted each other's backs in congratulations. Loki watched them for a moment, almost smiled once at their jocularity. But then he looked down at his hands and I saw his face drop. He wanted what Thor had, I knew. And why shouldn't he have it? He was smarter, wiser, kinglier, better prepared for ruling…

I squeezed his forearm. "Ready?" I said, trying to bring his attention back to the present, to the celebration of our accomplishments together.

He looked down at both of my eyes in turn and whispered, "Yes. Are you?"

I smiled at him and nodded.

In the grand ballroom, gongs rang out. The crowd inside cheered hysterically. Loki lifted his arm to me. I took it, and together, we walked inside, behind Thor and his rowdy friends. All of Asgard applauded us, tossed roses at our feet. Loki caught a deep maroon one and tucked it into my thick, dark hair. I wore it there almost the whole night—

I shut my eyes, as if that will cast the memory away. But the image only presses harder into my vision, forces my eyes open again. That is a memory seared into my brain forever.

And now I have to see him again, even if it hurts.

Heljek Prison is understandably more frigid now, in the early hours of the morning, than in the orange glow of the evening, so I throw on an extra fur cloak before descending into Loki's prison lair. I also take a medical kit with me, as I'm sure no physicians have come to care for his injuries yet. I'm not sure if they ever will. Odin isn't withholding the usual prisoner treatment from his son, despite what I'd hoped.

Loki sits on his bed staring into space with his shackled hands resting in his lap. Taking a deep breath, I press my hand against the scanner and the glass doors peal aside for me. When I step into the cell, they close behind me with a soft hum. The guards turn about-face and tap their spears against the marble floor. No one is watching me, thankfully. I'm nervous enough already.

"I've brought you some things," I say softly, holding out the medical kit. I notice his dinner tray hasn't been touched.

Loki has to drag his eyes back from somewhere far away before it seems he actually sees me. Then he only looks at me once and back out into space again. I want to ask him what he sees there, but I don't. Instead, I study the blood crusted onto parts of his face. The rest of it is silvery and moist. He must have a fever.

I take a deep breath and prepare myself for disappointment. "You don't look terribly awful," I say a little more loudly, hoping my words will ring a bell somewhere within the caverns of his dark mind. Does he remember our Guardian Ball? Does he remember my arm through his?

He smirks and looks up at me. "Well," he says, gallantly, "you look _beautiful_ this evening."

Though I know he doesn't mean it, that he's only playing along, my heart races as I lay the medical kit beside him. He remembers. That's all that matters.

Though I do love that particular arrangement of words coming from his mouth.

I look at him for a moment, calculating, then I wave off my guards. My guards gape at me like I've lost my mind, but I stare them down until they back away from the glass observation wall and make their way back up the hall to the only way in or out of Heljek. Finally, when they've all moved away a comfortable distance, I turn back to Loki.

I can just imagine what is running through his head as he watches me. "Alone at last," he says. I can see the gears turning in his mind. I keep myself from smirking. Now I've got the god of lies curious. What an accomplishment!

Dipping the gauze in a mug of warm water, I say, "I can help you look less awful, if you'd like."

He raises his eyebrows. "The devil-may-care look doesn't suit me?" He feigns mock surprise.

"Some would say you're the devil yourself," I reply, planting a fist on my hip.

Loki flashes me a crazed smile. "How sensible of them," he says, his fingers agitatedly tapping his knee. "And what do you think? Who am I?" he asks.

This is a test. I pause, watching his face. "Whoever you say you are," I say.

He stops tapping but his eyes are roving my face. His lips part, then close again.

Holding the moist gauze towards him, I ask, "May I?"

"If you must," he says.

As I step towards him, I know for sure that I should never have accepted Odin's orders. I should've turned it down and joined the cavalry or the palace guard or gone anywhere else in the Nine Realms but here, to this prison cell, with this being, with all of this crazy, suppressed emotion of mine. Because I'm about to explode.

The lines from the silencer still mark his face. Without thinking, I reach out and trace the one under his left cheekbone with the tip of my finger. Loki studies me carefully. I know that with this simple touch I have told him too much. But I wonder when the last time was that someone touched him this way. His mother, the night he became acting-king when Thor was banished and Odin in a coma? Another woman I don't know about? The latter thought sets a knot roiling in my chest.

I brush the gauze across his jawline and forehead, wiping away crusted blood. I squeeze it out into a cup and continue with fresh gauze until his face is, for the most part, clean. Then I dab warm water on the cut that runs up the side of his neck and clean there too. When I finish, I dip two fingertips into the small tub of ointment and gently massage it into the scrape. "Looking better already," I say.

Loki opens his eyes. I didn't realize he closed them. "Your lips are blue," he says quietly.

"It's cold in here." I straighten and put away the gauze.

"Is it?"

He is still staring at my lips, and I am staring at his, then I don't know why I am doing it, but suddenly, I am reaching into the folds of my dress and procuring the key to his shackles. "Don't make me regret this," I say, leaning over him. I turn the key inside the left cuff first and then the right. For a moment, I consider securing the shackles out of reach, somewhere within the folds of my cloak where he can't use them to his advantage. But his hands are as warm as they were in the North Courtyard. I remember the warmth of his knuckles and the snowy bird that flew out of his hands and over the sea, and I drop the shackles onto the floor with a clatter. Then, somehow, my fingers are touching the bloody marks they've made around his wrists.

"Why did you come here, really?" Loki asks, watching my hands.

"I wanted to prove myself wrong about something," I say. I thought he changed too much to still be him, to still be that mischievous young boy I loved.

"I hope your quest was successful," he whispers.

"It's been very successful." I smile slightly and apply healing salve to both of his wrists as he watches me.

He leans forward, studying my face. "Do you know why I did it?" he asks me. His eyes look crazed, and with his hands free, I know he could kill me if he wanted to, though I'd put up a good fight.

"Yes," I say, wiping the last of the blood off his right wrist, "I know why."

He stares into me, and I know the god of lies finds none in me. Because I know. I _do_ know why the god of lies went out of his way to attempt to destroy Jotunheim and the Bifrost, to rule Earth, and to make an alliance with a race that has been at odds with the Nine Realms since the dawn of time. The younger prince had enough of being second-best, of living in Thor's shadow, of being silent when his silver tongue had all the right words to say. He wanted a chance in the spotlight. Selfish, yes. Arrogant, yes. But we all have our struggles.

When I finish his wrists, Loki opens and closes his hands, testing them. I bend over the medical kit again and pull out a cool, shimmery salve for his black-eye. I swipe a little on my fingertip and gently touch the bruised area.

Loki takes a ragged breath and shuts his eyes.

At the Guardian Ball, we ate across the table from one another, and he caught my eye twice. The second time, he blushed as red as the roses in the crystal vials, scattered all over the table. But even then, even with the butterflies in my chest and the smiles playing on our lips, I knew it was all wrong, that it wouldn't last, that my emotions were getting the better of me and I'd only be left alone and heartbroken when Loki married some devastatingly attractive princess and ruled a kingdom with her far from Asgard.

So I left. I slipped away before the dancing began, before anyone could notice my absence. I stood alone on the balcony outside Quarters, letting the night air cool my flaming cheeks, calm my pounding heart, and I took the rose out of my hair, pulled off its petals one at a time. Each represented a moment we had spent together, a smile passed between us, a joke shared, a wink that sent my heart fluttering wild and free.

I laid the petals on the marble railing and watched stars shoot across the deep cerulean sky. I breathed in. And out. And the rose petals lifted on the breeze and disappeared into the night. I didn't even watch where they fell.

_Stop_, I scream at myself. I touch his cheeks, his chin, his long, graceful neck… But I won't. I won't stop. I stopped the night of the Guardian Ball. I loved Loki from the moment I saw him practicing in secret before our first day of training, and I successfully managed to hide my feelings from the world. But when we walked into that ballroom together, arm in arm, I let myself pretend for just a second that it could work. But it was one second too long. I cherished the strength of his arm through mine, his long-legged gait beside me, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

When the last of the rose petals blew off the balcony railing, I heard a familiar set of light footsteps and whirled around. My eyes caught just the tip of Loki's sea-green cape, vanishing inside. He saw what I did with our rose. He knew I'd stopped imagining, stopped wishing and hoping against all odds that it could happen—that an unimportant soldier could marry a prince. And like I blew those petals into the night, he let me go. One week later, he was deployed to a nearby kingdom, and I haven't seen him since. Not until now.

This is why I won't stop, why I can't let him slip away a second time.

I brush my thumb over the crack in his lower lip, and his brilliant sea-foam green eyes startle me as they open and lock onto mine. Then he stands and his fingers are on my chin. Heat races through my body, sizzles along every nerve. Before I can step back, he reaches up and brushes his thumb against the sword cut on my cheekbone, the notch in my ear. I gasp as each place tingles with warmth and instinctively reach for them.

They're gone, the wounds. Healed. Completely. I stare at Loki in disbelief.

"Any other injuries I should know about?" he whispers.

My heart is pounding through my ribcage. I'm sure he can see it, the veins in my neck pulsing, my chest rising and falling. I want to say yes so we can continue like this. Instead I shake my head, not trusting myself enough to speak.

"What is it then?" he asks.

And I hate myself for it, but without a word, I leave the cell. The glass doors swish closed behind me. My guards fall back into rank, a few looking at me questioningly. I ignore their stares. Tears blind me and I trip twice. At the top of the staircase, I wipe my eyes furiously and look back.

Loki is massaging his wrists on his throne of stone, touching the places I touched just moments before. What does he think of me now? What is he feeling? What is going on in his head? I could easily find out. I could easily enter his mind and learn everything.

But I don't. Instead, I stumble out of Heljek, my whole body aching for him—aching because of what was and what can never be again.


	5. Chapter 5

I don't sleep the rest of the night, and when dawn breaks, orange and purple, I'm leaning over the balcony, my eyes drooping, my hips and knees stiff from standing in the cool weather for hours. My attendants are shocked I look this bad and throw me into a steaming hot bath to soak out the stress. Makeup comes next and a choice of three sumptuous gowns I don't think anyone could ever look good in. I choose the least ugly one of the bunch and let them do my hair up in a simple braided wrap to the back of my head. Then I'm making my way to Heljek Prison, once again slipping a fur shawl over myself as I enter the icy vaults.

Loki is sitting up in bed. My hand is scanned and the door slides open for me. I enter without saying anything.

He looks me over and says, "I dreamt about you last night." Loki's voice sounds rough, cracked as if he'd been shouting, screaming even, for a long time. "It was the first dream I've had in months."

Standing but a few feet from him, I notice the red lines on his face are finally gone, the scrape is now just a light scar, and the cuts and bruises on his face are healing quickly. His sea-foam green eyes rove my face, my body, slide from my shoulders to my legs to my toes, taking in everything he sees. For a second, I have a ridiculous thought about him being able to see through my clothes and blush.

To break the tension, I reach out and feel his forehead. It isn't as hot as it was yesterday, and it's beaded with sweat. His fever's broken then. "You should eat something."

His expression is comical to watch—a mixture of surprise and disgust, like that was the last thing on earth he thought I'd say. I know he wants me to ask him what happened in his dream, but I don't. Instead, I add, "Really, you look like you've been dead for days."

He blinks, just once, and keeps staring at me with that same, baffled expression so I take a bowl of oatmeal from a servant waiting outside the cell and place it on his bedside table. I even hold a spoonful towards him and raise my eyebrows to let him know I'm not kidding.

He swallows a mouthful, cringing a little. "Odin gave you this assignment," he says after swallowing two more meager bites, "yet I bet there are so many other places you'd rather be."

He's watching my face for a reaction, but I don't answer at first because I know he's testing me. And quite frankly, I'm tired of being tested. This is the second time in less than a day.

"You're right," I say. "There are many, _many_ other places I'd rather be right now." I arm myself against his beautiful emerald eyes and look into them without blinking, without looking away. "I'd rather be sitting in the Great Room around the fire swapping stories with you, or laughing at your jokes, or pranking around the castle, or riding into battle beside you—"

"I've disappointed you then," he says, cutting me off.

"And instead," I choose to ignore him, "I'm practically force-feeding oatmeal to the sick and starving, probably deranged, prince of Asgard, who's just been given life in prison." Now I'm furious with him for not being who he used to be, and letting all my anger show for once feels good. "And, _worse_, he doesn't even remember me or how things were between us. Either that or he acts like none of it ever mattered to him. Maybe it didn't—I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't care as much as I do." I pause a moment, hoping my words sink in, dig in deep where it hurts. Then I add, "I'm _sick_ of this. I'm sick of you looking at me like I'm a stranger, Loki. You knew me once, you know." I push a wave of dark hair from my eyes and glare at him.

He's scowling at the floor. "Admit it," he says. "I was a shadow in your eyes."

"That's not true!" I shout at him. "You're such a liar!"

There's a knock on the glass and I turn to see a servant waiting with a tea tray. I retrieve it and rearrange a few biscuits that have fallen off the plate. The tea kettle is still hot, despite the trip from the kitchens.

After setting the tray by Loki's feet on the bed, I say, "Your mother must've sent this for you. She's always asking how you are."

"If she cared, she'd be here herself," Loki spits.

"Odin won't allow it."

He stares at me, then says sarcastically. "He was always such a good father to me."

"Loki…" I warn, looking behind me. Hopefully the guards haven't heard anything. "You need to be careful. Just because you're in prison doesn't mean you're safe."

"How much safer can it get? I'm buried beneath a thousand feet of rock, in the heart of the most secure prison in the nine realms. What could happen?"

"Odin could change his mind, have you executed or something—I don't know!" I'm exasperated now, fed up with his lilting tone and carelessness.

He chuckles. "Odin is a hard old man, but he isn't cruel."

I turn away and walk to the glass. "I'll be back later, Loki."

"Not staying for tea?"

I shake my head as the glass opens to me. "Once, I would've, Loki. Once, I would've loved for you to ask me that." When I glance back at him, expressions of surprise, sadness, and regret run their course on his face and in the slope of his shoulders. I sigh. "I just wish you'd remember you meant the world to me."

His mouth opens and closes again as he swallows whatever words he was about to say. Then his eyes jerk to the floor, clouded with hurt. I let the glass swoosh closed behind me, thinking he needs to be hurt. He needs to feel something—_any_thing. Sometimes the darkness is so thick, the best we can do is feel our way out of it.

I journey through the golden halls and endless marble corridors of the palace to my chamber to regroup.

Loki. Don't think about Loki. My eyes close, but then I see his sea-foam green ones, his angular face, tall and lean body.

"Lady Astrid?" A servant peeps her head through the door. "There is a message for you, from his majesty, Prince Thor."

"Thank you," I say. He passes a shimmering silver envelope to me and I take it delicately, admiring its craftsmanship. Inside reads,

Lady Astrid,

I would be honored if you would join me for a survey of the Bifrost. Repairs are, for the most part, complete, and your opinion of its progress thus far matters a great deal to me. If you so wish to join me, please meet me at the stable in half an hour.

Yours,

Thor

I pass the note back to the servant and say, "Please inform his majesty that I will meet him at the stable as he wishes and that I look forward to it."

"Of course, my lady." The servant hurries off to complete my return note, and I sink back into my cozy blankets for a quick power nap. Screaming at Loki has exhausted me.

A little less than half an hour later, I'm standing at the entrance to the stables—a massive building with stalls the size of small houses and horses happily munching their hay. A jet-black horse leans her head out the stall door, over bars of gold, and whinnies at me. I walk over to her and brush her black mane and face. This is Sriri, Loki's mount.

"You don't mind riding her, do you?" asks Thor. I turn and see him walking into the stable, dressed in riding attire.

"I'd love to," I say back, smiling at him.

Thor nods. "That's kind of you. Loki would appreciate it, I'm sure. We've had her exercised daily, but it isn't the same…" His voice drops off.

"I'm honored," I say, bowing.

"Astrid." Thor lays a strong, tanned hand on my left bicep and straightens me. "Don't be so formal!" He gives me arm a playful squeeze. "We've known each other long enough."

I smile and say, "I suppose it feels different now, how things are…"

"With Loki in Heljek, everything feels different—I know." Thor takes his snow-white mount from his groomsmen. One passes Thor the reins, as two others finish brushing Yara's long white mane and hindquarters until gleaming.

I watch him a moment and say, "It's hard, seeing him like this." I lean against Sriri's stall door and look at the ground. "I never imagined things would turn out this way."

"None of us did," Thor says and glances up at the sun, directly above our heads.

I don't know what to say next, so I just sigh. Another set of groomsmen prepare Sriri.

"You've always been loyal to us, Astrid—to the whole family," Thor says. "My mother and father love you like a daughter—they admire your courage. Even Loki…I never saw him smile as much as when you were near. I don't know if you realize how he felt about you." Thor looks at me, then pretends to focus on something in the distance, no doubt feeling awkward that he's shared so much.

But I'm just trying to pretend my heart isn't racing.

"When he was transferred to Deptir," Thor adds, playing with Yara's reins, "he wrote to me, asking me to look after you while he was away."

I allow myself a polite smile and say, "That was kind of him."

"Now, it is _you_ looking after _him_," Thor adds.

I take Sriri's reins and mount her swiftly. Thor does the same with Yara, and together we ride out of the stables, towards the Bifrost.

It surprises me, how long it has taken to rebuild our portal to the Nine Realms. Loki's ice tree and Thor's hammer destroyed it completely. As we ride out, we see the rainbows burst beneath our horses hooves, and the ocean rolls around us. At the end of the Bridge, Thor and I dismount to observe the construction in close proximity. Master craftsmen and magicians alike are hard at work rebuilding Heimdall's Keep. The strongest Asgardian elements are used to construct it. Metalworkers pound the material into shape, and magicians chant protective spells over the repairs.

Thor asks me what I think about the progress and I give him my ideas. I don't have many, but he nods and smiles and takes everything I say so seriously that I can't help but feel important and useful.

When we return to the stables, Thor dismounts Yara and holds a hand out to help me down from Sriri. I reach out to take it, but he grabs my waist instead and gently lowers me to the floor. I'm like a feather in his strong arms and hands.

"Fresh air always does good for a soul, doesn't it?" he asks me, smiling.

I smile back. "Absolutely. I needed this. Thank you, your maj—"

Thor cuts me off with a wave of his hand and leans towards me. "_Thor_, Astrid. Just call me Thor. No more of this formality." He tucks a strand of curly dark hair behind my ear and adds, "And you need not coop yourself up in Heljek every hour of the day with my rascally brother. Don't be shy about letting me know when you'd like to ride out again. It'll help take your mind off things." His clear blue eyes look down at me earnestly.

"Thank you, _Thor_," I say. "That sounds lovely."

"Wonderful."

"I should return though," I say. "I want to be sure your brother ate something. I've been coaxing him to eat ever since he arrived but to no avail. He looks terrible—like he hasn't eaten in weeks."

Thor's eyes darken a little as he turns to the palace. "Perhaps we'll see each other at dinner then," he says.

"Perhaps," I say and leave him alone with his thoughts.

As I make my way back to my room to change out of my riding clothes, my vision grows dark and I freeze. I'm stuck leaning against a railing of the spiraling grand staircase. This vision has come on so suddenly, I don't even have time to sit down. And no one is around me to be sure I don't fall. But as the small light appears, I know this can't wait, that I have to let it swallow me.

I'm startled when I look up and see Loki staring right at me—through me, I mean—and when I turn around to see who it is he's really looking at, I nearly jump out of my skin.

We're standing on a cliff overlooking an army of thousands and thousands of Chitauri soldiers. They're chanting something in their language. I don't know what it is at first, but then it comes to me: "Tesseract! Tesseract!" Loki face is the epitome of fear, as if he's just realized what he's done in recruiting this strange alien race to help him take over Earth.

I take a step forward and try to touch Loki's shoulder but my hand passes right through him. So this is a memory then. When it's a memory, he can't sense me. But I can speak to him, into his present self, probably lying in his prison bed. If he's sleeping, he won't respond. But if he's awake, he might. We could talk about these memories of his, and maybe I can help him block the Chitauri lord from taking over his mind.

_Loki_, I probe his consciousness gently.

But his response comes immediately. _Help me_.


	6. Chapter 6

As I crash into Heljek, an entourage of guards surrounds me. The commander informs me that Loki is due back in his cell in an hour. He's in an interrogation.

My heart stops. "What?" I hear myself ask stupidly as I peer around the guards' broad shoulders. Yes, his vault is indeed empty.

Loki's gone.

"Warden Staghir summoned him just a few moments ago," a guard tells me. "Says he has some things to ask 'im." He turns and laughs with a friend before adding, "Looks like the rascal's gettin' what's comin' to him!"

I shove him over and don't turn back when I hear his spear clatter to the floor. I didn't mean to knock him over, just out of the way. But I'm so livid, I don't really care.

Staghir. Head Warden. Blood-thirsty. Cruel. And my superior… There is really nothing I can do to stop him from interrogating Loki, but I need to be there. Anytime his mind undergoes interrogation-level amounts of stress, the Chitauri lord can enter his mind, because that's when he's at his weakest.

I sprint into the prison, down a passage on the right and up a narrow flight of curved steps. I leap up the last three and nearly slam my face into the door at the top before I can shove it open.

"Stop!—" A guard tries to command me as he stumbles out of the way in surprise on the other side.

Of course I don't listen. At a door at the other end of the hall, there's a soldier standing tall and proud with a braid all the way down her back. Glithir, my old friend and renown swordswoman of Asgard. Staghir must've called in the best for this interrogation, which means he's nervous. He has his doubts as to whether or not he'll really be able to control Loki.

He's right to doubt.

"Glithir, where is he?" I ask, breathless.

"Inside," Glithir says, looking me over. "I'm afraid I can't let you in. Warden Staghir's orders." I'm about to protest but she's unlocking the door behind her with a nod of understanding. I say my thanks as I rush by.

Inside is an observation room looking out into what the wardens call the "Cold Room," an interrogation room where prisoners surrender information, or else freeze to death. I'm guessing Warden Staghir isn't clued in on this being Loki's favorite sort of weather, because he's looking smug in a fur coat that glides side to side as he struts into the cell. His nose has been broken so many times, it looks like a mountain range has formed in the center of his face, but his vulture eyes are sharp and cruel. His breath comes in huge puffs of white as he rips a black bag off the head of a man tied to a chair in the center of the icy cell.

Loki's head lolls to the side, and I know something isn't right. His eyes aren't focusing and his lips keep moving. When I reach out to his consciousness—gently, so he knows it's me—it's nebulous. _Loki, it's me. I'm here,_ I say.

"Welcome home." Staghir grins. Loki blinks dazedly in reply, and Staghir takes a step forward. "There are just a few questions that have been eating at me lately… I wonder if you could help." As he circles Loki, I see the stunpod on his belt and heart pounds harder. Does he actually plan on using the thing? This could get really bad, really fast.

"Question number one," Staghir says. "How did we get to become so friendly with the Chitauri?"

I have my own theories about that. They have so much in common, first off. Loki and the Chitauri both have transformative abilities to blend in and affect change behind the scenes. They are secret string-pullers of the universe.

"Let me rephrase my question," Staghir says with calculated patience. "You're going to tell me how you met the Chitauri, where you were, what you said, what you told them about us and about Asgard… About your own _father_. And, if you don't want to talk to me, I have ways of making you want to." Staghir pushes aside his cloak to show off his stunpod but much to his disappointment, Loki isn't watching. Instead, he's drooling up at the ceiling. "You should know that by talking to me you'll be helping to ensure the safety of the entire universe. So…no pressure."

Why doesn't Loki do anything? Say anything? Normally, he loves to banter, to argue and convince… I lean up against the back wall, hoping to blend in with the other jail guards whose eyes are glued to the Cold Room while I think.

The black bag. His cloudy consciousness. I know what's happening. They poison-gassed Loki with chlirintyn, a chemical designed by Staghir himself to make interrogations successful. Criminals can't help but answer every question interrogators throw their way. Staghir must have soaked the bag in chlirintyn and let it dry into the fabric before putting it over Loki's head. Then Loki breathed its vapors. But will chlirintyn actually make the god of lies tell the truth? I wrack my mind, trying to remember all the symptoms and side effects of the chemical.

"I really don't have all day," Staghir says, moving in closer. "You'll need to start talking before I lose my patience." His thumb wraps around the stunpod trigger.

Loki's eyes widen as if he's forcing himself to become conscious of his surroundings. But it's not an easy task. If the poison is affecting him, which it certainly seems to be, then the whole room feels to him as if it were moving, shifting back and forth like a ship on high seas. The ceiling is lifting and falling, crushing him, pushing him upwards into the hard concrete overhead, swirling, mixing together, distorting the world around him. The average prisoner would be throwing up everything in his stomach right now, but when Loki tips his head back and stares at the icy ceiling, his eyes no longer rolling wildly. They are focused and still. He's gained control. That's incredible…

I take a step toward the glass, which is only transparent from here in the observation room, and touch his foggy consciousness with just a fingertip of mine so he knows I'm close by.

_Astrid_, he says.

_Just tell Staghir what he wants to hear and they'll let you out of here._

_Can't._

_Why not?_

"Chitauri," he says suddenly. I notice red marks on his throat. Did they try to strangle him? He must've tried to fight them off before they threw the chlirintyn bag over his head.

"Why did you go to them?" Staghir probes.

"I—I…" Loki coughs and his head falls against his chest.

"Last chance, Loki. Answer me," Staghir hisses.

_Loki, just do it. He'll_—

Staghir pulls the trigger. A growl of rage escapes Loki's throat as a surge of white-hot energy cradles his body, convulses it with pain. I cover my mouth to keep from screaming. I feel it. I feel it too—just like on the Bifrost. It courses through my veins, burns my eyes from the inside out. I clutch the wall and bite my lips together. No one notices, thank the gods. No one can know about the connection we have. I don't even understand it yet.

Staghir asks in the patient tone of a doctor or a schoolteacher, "Tell me, what did you seek from the Chitauri? Did you have some sort of agreement? A common quest?"

After a few ragged breaths, Loki mumbles something incoherent from which I just barely catch the phrase "ways of overruling Earth," then his eyes roll backwards, and he closes them, his skin glistening with sweat from the effort of just talking.

"And you wanted their assistance," Staghir deduces, "in exchange for what?"

"Tesseract," Loki croaks. "They wanted the Tesseract."

Staghir jabs the stunpod beneath Loki's chin to pull his face upwards. "And just how did you manage to acquire the most powerful object in the known universe?" he asks. I'm certain he knows all the answer to these questions, so why is he asking them? And why doesn't Loki just answer? What does he have to lose?

Loki has a coughing fit but recovers with a chuckle. "As you can see, it obviously didn't work out quite as I'd planned." A few people near me laugh. Loki coughs again and winces when he swallows.

My eyes narrow. I know that chlirintyn burns its victim's throat as it wears off it, so if the poison has run its course in Loki's body already, then it hasn't worked on him.

The god of lies is beating the poison of truth. In spite of everything, a smug smile tugs the corners of my lips.

But Staghir aims the stunpod at his chest, pulls the trigger, and Loki's body convulses a second time. He roars like a beast—the veins in his neck stiff and protruding painfully.

I bite my fist and taste blood as pain wracks my body too. Someone next to me gives me a curious look and I think he asks me if I'm okay and if a delicate young lady like me should be in here at all to witness an interrogation, but I can't hear much of anything except Loki's raging and my own heart pounding.

When I can breathe again, my fists pound the glass, but two strong hands take my shoulders and pull me back. "You should go," a guard tells me. "This is no place for a young woman." But I'm not really listening to them, or caring. My brain is on fire with idea after hopeless idea of stopping Staghir. But he's my superior. If I interfere with his interrogation, the consequences will not be favorable for me.

When Staghir finally releases the trigger, Loki slouches forward in his chair, sweat pouring off of his face, dripping onto his lap. His leg twitches. I think he's unconscious, until he starts laughing—silently at first, then building into something completely and utterly insane.

Staghir cracks the butte of his stunpod against Loki's jaw and screams, "I want answers now, and you're going to give them to me! Your games are over, Loki!"

The smile drops from his face so that only his lower teeth show—long, white, and menacing like a rabid animal's. That is the other thing about chlirintyn. As the poison wears off, its victims become uncontrollably violent, and I've seen that expression on Loki's face before… We were surrounded by harpies on the coast of Izergar, facing almost certain death, when one of them called him "a pretty little princess." Needless to say, there haven't been any harpies living in Izergar since that day. "Are they?" Loki asks, rolling his jaw.

I scream at myself to do something, anything before he makes things worse for himself. I try the side door that leads to the interrogation room, but it's locked. Through a small window, I see Staghir taking an instinctive step backwards, stunpod lifted in a defensive position.

I pull the dagger from my waist and smash the lock apart, opening the door just in time to see Loki slowly lift his hands from the arms of the chair. The ropes that bound them shatter into pieces over the floor, frozen. "That's a shame," Loki's saying as he stands, "because I do like games." He raises his hands towards Staghir.

The warden's expression is of pure terror. He pulls the trigger, firing directly at Loki's heart, but the shot is deflected into the far wall by a wave of Loki's own energy, thrown with a wave out of his left hand. "You must realize by now, oh great Warden, that extracting the truth from the god of lies is _impossible_." He spits the last word, then makes a face of mock-apology. In a flash of brilliant blue light, a blade of ice grows out of his right hand, glistening and jagged-edged.

"Loki—no!" I scream.

He glances over his shoulder at me and I hear, _Get out, Astrid._

Shocked, I can only watch as Staghir stumbles backwards and hits the "Emergency" button against the wall. The door flies open and guards pour into the room. I'm knocked to the side as they create a barrier around Staghir and tackle Loki, who's pushed onto his knees and shoved to the floor. Guards point their stunpods at his back, and then I find myself there too, between Loki and the guards.

Then we're all thrown into the ceiling.

My confusion quickly dissolves into fear as I realize I've no way of stopping what comes next. I slam into the hard white concrete on the opposite side of the room. With not an ounce of air left in my lungs, I slide down the wall and hit the floor with a series of cracking sounds. I wheeze and cough and can't move. My face is numb. My shoulder's on fire. I think I've broken it, maybe. There's a lot of screaming and zapping, and armor clashing. I'm certain Loki's been electrocuted to death when there's complete silence.

"The hold," Staghir gasps, clutching a gushing wound in his side. "Carry him back into the hold." When he coughs, blood spatters the floor. He falls against the wall behind him, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

Someone shouts, "Medwing—call the medwing!"

My eyes glide over the scene, uncaring, until they come to Loki, lying in a heap on the floor and surrounded by several shaken soldiers. Blood lies in a puddle around his head. I go to call his name, but there's isn't enough air in my lungs yet to speak and I can't seem to be able to roll over. I probe his consciousness instead and find darkness. He's either dead or he's blocked me out entirely.

I grunt and let my head fall against the floor. I'll just lie here awhile. More comfortable here. Something's dripping down my face. Guess it's blood. Probably have a concussion too—bad one. _Loki_, I call to him one last time.

Nothing.

Then it goes dark for me too.


End file.
